Consumers desire laundry detergents including, but not limited to those in liquid and gel forms, that provide excellent overall cleaning. The detergent industry typically utilizes surfactants, among other things, to deliver this benefit. Due to increasing environmental sensitivity, as well as rising cost, the wide spread use of surfactants may be losing favor. Consequently, detergent manufacturers are examining ways to reduce the dosage of surfactant in the wash liquor, while still providing the consumer with excellent overall cleaning. However, the reduction in the levels of surfactants, especially oil-derived surfactants such as linear alkyl benzene sulfonate has been found to lead to an erosion of greasy stain removal.
Soils and stains to be removed from fabrics and other surfaces range from polar soils, such as proteinaceous, clay, and inorganic soils, to non-polar soils, such as soot, carbon-black, byproducts of incomplete hydrocarbon combustion, and organic soils. As less surfactant is available for cleaning these soils and stains, other cleaning mechanisms must be found. One approach for reducing surfactant dosage is to formulate laundry detergents with polymers. Like surfactants, polymers may be useful as releasers of soil from fabric. In addition, or in the alternative, some polymers provide for suspension of soils dispersed in the wash liquor, which in turn prevents their deposition back onto the fabrics being washed.
It would therefore be desirable to provide laundry detergent compositions comprising polymer systems that provide for good, broad-range soil cleaning of surfaces and fabrics as well as suspension of the soils. It would be even more desirable that such laundry detergent compositions would provide for good cleaning even when formulated with low levels of surfactants and organic solvents. It would also be desirable to provide these laundry detergent compositions in forms such as granules, liquids, or gels.